Breathing Lessons

I have just returned from one of life's most bittersweet events....a "celebration of life" for a man who was taken from us at age 62.

We live in a very small town, and as one person at the party said, "In Somerville or Cambridge people would wonder what's the big deal that a real estate broker died..." But in our community this man was the quintessential pillar. And given what he did for a living, it is hard to believe that LITERALLY no one ever had a bad thing to say about him. He was a Prince.

So for those of us who are his demographic peers (no one can be his peer in terms of kindness, love, humor or joie de vivre...) what is the lesson? To live, love, laugh and be happy. Trite, corny, overdone. Yeah, whatever. It's still true. This is a person who was always seeing the best in people and always stopped to really talk to you. Someone said that a trip around the corner took him an hour because he stopped to talk to everyone.

How many times do we have to learn the lesson that life is short, that we should tell those around us that they are important to us, that we love and cherish them. I was talking to one of this man's best friends. I told him that, having lost three friends to whom I was extremely close, I could, in fact, feel his pain. It is not pretty. But it beats never having been close enough to anyone so that you avoid that pain.

This man did good and did well. He loved his family. He cherished his friends. He gave back to his community. He remade himself at least twice. He was the quintessential Baby Boomer.

He was the best. We can only hope to be half the person he was. Here's to you, Donnie....I'll never play darts without thinking of you.